This invention relates to an associative memory system and more particularly, it relates to a method and apparatus for handling data in an associative memory environment.
In recent years, there has been extensive work done towards developing more effective methods for creating data bases for use with computer systems and for accessing the data bases. One of the outgrowths of this work was to develop various data base management techniques for generating data bases which eliminated redundant data therefrom and which arranged a data base in a particular way so as to enhance its usage by more than one application program. A general discussion of data base management techniques may be found in the book, Principles Of Data Base Management, by James Martin, (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, Inc. 1976).
Another feature of the improved data base was to access data therefrom by the data itself instead of using an abstract memory location number as a selection device for accessing the data. For example, a person's social security number itself might be used to provide a means for accessing the data about that person from memory instead of using an abstract or arbitrary location scheme; this provided an apparent associative memory capability.
There are two methods of implementing this apparent associative memory capability. Some systems utilize software in the form of inverted files etc., to provide an efficient path to the selected data. This creates software complexity and increases the amount of data storage required. Attempts to eliminate the complex software and to utilize traditional hardware as a second method for searching did not provide satisfactory performance.